Latest Carbon product titan mach five (Titan Mach Five). Available at Rs 5,999, the specifications of this budget smartphone are tempting. There is a 5 MP front camera with flash, in addition, the device has an IR transmitter and a 5-inch HD screen. Will the Mach Five be able to make a name for itself in the budget segment with these features? We’ll try to find out in our review of the phone.
Appearance and Design
Despite the fact that the Karbonn Titanium Mach Five is in the entry-level price segment, it looks interesting. There’s so much that’s special about its design that it looks fresh. The phone is available in champagne, silver and blue-white colors. There is a thick black stripe around the screen. Three soft keys are located at the bottom of the screen. They are backlit, but are only effective in the dark.
The back panel of the device is removable. The power and volume buttons are located on a removable panel. There is a 3.5mm audio port and IR blaster at the top of the device, while a micro-USB port is at the bottom of the device. At 7.3mm thick, this device is neither too thick nor downright thin. Considering the price, we have no complaints about the appearance and design of this phone.
Specifications and software
Carbon Titan Mach Five It has a 5-inch (720×1280 pixels) screen, 16GB of internal storage (32GB microSD card support) and 2GB of RAM. The device is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor, a popular SoC in budget devices. The phone is equipped with a 2200 mAh battery and runs on Android 5.0 operating system.
The Mach Five’s biggest competitor is the Motorola Moto E (Gen 2) (review). The Mach Five beats the Moto E in terms of RAM, storage, display size and resolution. On paper, the Mach Five is more attractive in this price range than the Moto E (Gen 2). However, you can’t judge a phone by its specs alone.
The user interface is very lightweight and very similar to the stock Android Lollipop. The device comes pre-installed with many games and applications that can be uninstalled. The SwiftKey keyboard is also included in the Titanium Mach Five. There’s also a Peel Smart Remote app that lets you take advantage of the IR blaster. After some initial hiccups, we were able to use the remote app and iBlaster with LG and Videocon TVs in our office. It worked well. Very similar to a regular remote control.
Even though the Karbonn Titanium Mach Five is very close to stock Android, it doesn’t offer the user a lot of controls or customization options. The biggest drawback is the lack of ability to display battery percentage in the status bar (this can be done through a third-party app). The interface works well, but you can’t fully customize the phone to suit your needs. It was very disappointing.
camera
The Karbonn Titanium Mach Five has an 8-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel front camera. Flash is also available in both cameras. By the way, the front camera flash produces less light than the rear one. The front camera works well in many ways. Apart from good selfies, it takes decent pictures even in low light. The camera software also worked well most of the time. It also has several useful features. Shooting modes, filters, flash and camera switch are easily accessible. The sensor focuses quickly.
Whenever we opened the camera app, we were faced with a tutorial screen. Pressing the back button closes the man page and takes you to the page you want, but it was very annoying. For this reason, you will not be able to take photos quickly. However, we later found out that it turns off after completing the training, which takes about 30 seconds.
Despite the fact that this is a budget device, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of its camera. The 8-megapixel sensor produced clear, detailed images in normal lighting. In low light, there was a decrease in sharpness and color. Even though the Karbonn Titanium Mach Five is a device that costs Rs 6,000, it performs well in the camera department.
performance
The performance of the Karbonn Titanium Mach Five was average in daily use. The interface and applications worked without any glitches. The Mach Five scored 20,084 and 9,380 points in the AnTuTu and Quadrant tests, respectively. GFXBench and 3DMark tests returned results of 6.9 fps and 2867 respectively, which are slightly lower.
Playing our test video Carbon Titan Mach Five There was a problem. The phone played light videos easily. Even though the Mach Five has a 720p resolution screen, its GPU isn’t particularly suited for graphics-intensive tasks.
In terms of speaker volume, call quality, reception and Wi-Fi strength, performance in this regard is on par with any other budget smartphone. We have a complaint about the sensitivity of the phone’s touchscreen, which sometimes treats swipes as touches. The soft keys sometimes didn’t register keystrokes correctly, making it difficult for us to handle the phone comfortably. This device is weak in terms of battery life. The Karbonn Titanium Mach Five’s battery lasted 7 hours and 36 minutes in the video loop test.
our decision
Despite the low price, the list of features of the Karbonn Titanium Mach Five is quite impressive. There are very few devices available in the market with 2GB RAM, stock Android and a decent camera for just Rs 6,000. Apart from this, Titanium Mach Five also has front flash and IR blaster, as well as amazing looks and HD screen.
The phone looks weak due to performance and software shortcomings. There aren’t many customization options, and many of the niceties Android users are used to are missing. Software-related shortcomings can be fixed through firmware updates, but there is no word on when they will appear.
This is a phone that is good in some ways and bad in others. However, the Mach Five, priced at Rs 5,999, will definitely appeal to budget users who want a good camera and a beautiful display. If you are planning to buy a budget device, then you should consider this smartphone.
